Best In Show

A livestock-show cozy mystery where a perfect champion comes with imperfect paperwork—and a body in the barn.

Everyone at the Tri-County Livestock Fair in Sabinal, Illinois, is talking about Cannonball, the market steer that looks too good to lose. Dorothy Meade has spent enough years judging to know that too good deserves a second look.

Then cattleman Roy Deel arrives with a battered file and a claim nobody wants to hear: the cheating that ruined his family years ago is still going on. Before Dorothy can examine his proof, Roy is found dead in a show pen. A frightened animal offers an easy explanation. The way the gate was secured offers Dorothy a harder question.

As the championship approaches, Dorothy follows scale tickets, pedigree papers, and a trail of winners whose stories don't quite match their animals. Agriculture inspector Del Rourke helps with the records, while her beagle Reserve does his best to turn the cattle barn into a buffet.

But this investigation reaches into territory Dorothy never expected to revisit. Her late husband spent thirty years on the livestock side of the circuit, and an old superintendent's notebook may hold the connection she's missing. To give Roy a fair hearing at last, she'll have to look beyond the champion's ribbon and confront what an honest-looking record can conceal.

Best in Show is Book 3 of The County Fair Mysteries, a rural whodunit with an observant older sleuth, affectionate humor, and a mystery that brings her husband's memory close.

For readers who love:

•   Livestock shows, 4-H barns, and rural community rivalries

•   Paperwork puzzles and clues hiding in plain sight

•   Capable older heroines with personal stakes

•   Beagle mischief, warm friendships, and quiet romance